I was driving home from work one day last week and I had a flashback to a party I went to in about 2000 or 2001. Some guy there asked me the Stupidest Question Ever and as I thought about it, I thought, “hmmm, I could write a blog about this one.” Me and Tiff laugh about it all the time. Now, the challenge is to convey it well, better than a “you-had-to-be-there” punch line. So, here goes …
We were somewhere around 25 and at a party at the house of one of her friends, who was also her boss at the time. There were probably 40 people there, quite a few from her work. Since she worked at Victoria’s Secret, it was a bunch of women co-workers gabbing and a bunch of guys drinking beer and talking to the other husbands/boyfriends who didn’t know anybody there.
I was standing there in the back yard with Tiff and there was a nice-sized pool. It was nighttime and there were these plastic floating thingies in the pool with lit candles in the middle. They were kind of nice and were a nice touch by the host.
I’m in the middle of talking to a few people, and a guy walked up and broke into the conversation with the Stupidest Question Ever. No, “What’s your name?” or “How’s it going?” or “What’s a guy like you doing in a place like this.” His icebreaker, the Stupidest Question Ever, was,
“If you jumped into the pool right now trying to knock out those candles, how many do you think you could get?”
Hmmm, amazingly, that’s something I hadn’t thought about. While I made sure I knew the path to the food, the keg and the bathroom, I hadn’t planned the best route into the pool (in street clothes, of course) to knock out candles and embarrass the heck out of my wife at her boss’s house.
So, I looked at them floating around in the pool. I tried to estimate how much surface area I would cover with a belly flop, and based on the spacing of the layout of the candles at that moment, I tried to figure out how spreading my arms would impact that. But I was thinking way too hard considering I already had a nice layer on from the beer. The Stupidest Question Ever was literally a buzz-kill.
Rather than come up with an answer like 12 (No, wait! 11!), I politely replied with,
“Interesting question. I don’t really know. But I bet that if my life depended on it, I could knock them all out in less than 30 seconds.”
The guy instantly looked at me like I had three heads. Guess he didn’t like my answer, which was obvious with the second (and final) sentence he ever said to me.
“Now seriously dude, when is your life going to depend on something like that?” And he turned and walked away.
Excellent point. How ridiculous of me to answer such a serious inquiry with such a hypothetical answer! I couldn’t help it, though. I had just been asked the Stupidest Question Ever.
I Do Charity Stuff
In case you’ve never been here, go to my About page so you can see why I’ve literally run my body into the ground to fight autism. Hint: My 8-year-old son Jack is severely autistic and it’s a passion of mine to do good things in his name to make the world a better place. Speaking of my little guy, here’s something cool he did this weekend.
Since he doesn’t really talk, we wonder what he’s thinking. But as evidenced by this picture, he’s definitely thinking.
I Like To Run
I’ve run 100 marathons and I have No. 101 coming up a week from Saturday. It’s my only chance to qualify for the 2013 Boston Marathon and to me, that’s a big deal. I’ve run Boston each of the past five years and it’s really the only reason I run for anything more than just quiet time and general fitness. I love running Boston.
Unfortunately, I’m coming off of a fairly bad hamstring strain. I went seven days without running (I did a fair amount of spinning at the gym), and then finally felt good and went out yesterday morning for a run. But then I felt bad and did the turnaround. 1.26 miles of come-on-hamstring-I-only-have-12-days-until-I-really-need-you.
This morning, I was going to run, but I felt a little something funky and I figured that rather than go out for a run and possibly do the turnaround, I went to the gym and rode the bike instead. Got a nice little workout in at the gym and if my day goes well, I’ll try a couple of slow miles on the treadmill after work today to see how it goes.
Annnnnnd … that’s all, folks! Have a great Tuesday! What’s the stupidest question you’ve ever been asked?
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